Here He Lies
by Julia456
Summary: Yeah, it's all AWE 'end credits scene' spoilers and fluff, and I won't pretend otherwise.


Note: So apparently I'm only driven to write ficlets for action movie sequels when they add kids. _Le sigh_. I'm going to pretend this urge has nothing to do with my profession (teaching kids) and more to do with um, heightened dramatic character, uh, stuff. Yeah, that sounds good.

Odysseus was held captive by Calypso for seven years, but then released. Yessss.

Edit: Okay, so I had this fic up for all of four hours and someone (thank you, pink hooligan!) pointed out that I had made a fundamental mistake (ie, writing at 2 AM). Therefore: Version 2.

---  
_This be the verse you grave for me:  
Here he lies where he longed to be;__  
__Home is the sailor, home from the sea..._

_- Robert Louis Stevenson_  
---

Will takes off his boots and sets them, carefully, on the floor next to the bed. His son stands in the doorway and watches with large, eager eyes. Asks the thousandth eager question of the night.

"Just the people that die at sea?"

"Yes," he says. He flexes his feet against the dry, unmoving wood floor of this house he's never seen before, this house Elizabeth claims as home. Glories in the sensation.

Solid earth. Ten years unfelt, and strange because of that - but still instantly familiar all the same, somehow. Much like the little boy drinking in the sight of him in so intently.

"What - what are they like?"

He thinks about it for moment. "Peaceful," he finally says. The dead are, mostly. They drift. Nothing bothers them because they have nothing left. It's only the living and the damned that have problems, and, he thinks ruefully, he can be both of those - just, not all at once.

His son frowns, as though that wasn't the answer he was expecting. It probably isn't, not after the fantastic and bizarre stories Will has been obliged to spin out tonight: tales of the _Dutchman_ and the other world and everything they've met in between.

But "Oh," is the only response young Will gives. Young Will, Will, Bootstrap Bill... He can't fault Elizabeth for the name of their son, but he does hope this newest William Turner has a better and longer run of luck than his father and grandfather.

A breeze trickles through the house, fluttering curtains and candleflames, and even though it brings the sharp tang of seasalt it also smells of flowers and trees and good fresh soil and _home_.

He stands and crosses to the door. Sways a little bit, expecting the roll of the deck; hard to get your legs back after ten years out. He kneels down, puts a hand on his son's shoulder. "I know that you have more questions," he says. "And I'll answer them, all that I can. I have questions for you, myself. But tomorrow, aye?"

"Aye sir." Some of the fire dims in those brown eyes, and the thin childish shoulder under his hand slumps. Nevermind young Will has been yawning for this past hour or more

He glances over his shoulder at the bed, at his wife sitting demurely on its edge, the very picture of propriety with all sorts of improper thoughts in her mind, he's certain. Then he looks back at their boy, gives him a wink and his shoulder a squeeze and drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Tonight's for your mum. Tomorrow's for you. Right?"

"Aye sir."

It's said with a mix of resignation and determination that echoes Elizabeth precisely, and he can't help it: he laughs and catches his son up in a long, fierce hug. Presses a kiss to the top of his head and sets him down again, tells him to give his mother a kiss, and sends him off to bed.

His son pauses at the threshold and says, "Good night, Father." The word sounds as foreign to the younger William's tongue as it is to the elder's ears, but the love is unmistakable.

It's the least, the very least, he can do to say, "Good night, son," in return, no matter how new and strange the endearment.

Tomorrow he'll go walking with his son, walking barefoot in the grass and over rocks, getting to know each other, trying to fill a decade's gap. And it will be bittersweet, but it will _be_, thank God.

He is keenly aware of time now, time in the mortal world, time running fast through their fingers even as they stand here in this small, intense tableau - this ancient and sacred trinity: mother, father, son.

Sacrifices.

All the sacrifices.

Is it worth it? Has it been worth the price he paid? Sometimes he's wondered, sailing across and between worlds, playing ferryman, playing Charon under a black flag. Ten long years of "sometimes". And then he trod upon land at sunset this evening and saw _her_ - oh, his Elizabeth, still perfect - and met _him_ - and realized that not to lose his heart would've cost him a child.

So today he answers that old question with an unqualified "_yes_."

His son pads away, yawning. Will shuts the door, tugs off his shirt and pants and the blue bandana he feels is grown into his head some days, like a coral or a starfish. Then the once and former captain of the _Flying Dutchman_ lays himself down onto the smooth fresh bedsheets beside his wife the Pirate King.

Here he is - no longer Charon but Odysseus, home again to the miracle of Telemachus and Penelope. And God help, he thinks, laughing to himself, any suitors who may have pestered her in his absence.

He breathes her in and smells flowers and clean sunshine.

"It was worth it," Elizabeth says to him, softly. "Wasn't it?"

"It was all worth it," he agrees between kisses, and feels her smile against his mouth. Feels her fingers skim over the jagged curve where his father cut out his heart to save his life, and pulls them gently elsewhere. That's not what she should remember about this homecoming.

She should remember the kisses and the smiles and the way he can make her breath hitch just _so_. She should remember the happy laughter and stories and the glorious bright life they'll have together. She should remember his voice whispering his love into her ear all through the dark hours.

Tonight is for her, tomorrow for his son, these precious days to follow for all of them, and - if he's lucky, if he's half as lucky as his son - he'll sleep each night and dream of the moment he came ashore to find his family waiting there, standing ready to welcome him home from the sea.

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end  
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End file.
